What are Visual Rules?
Visual rules are a tool to guarantee that products are displayed correctly in stores, maintaining both brand representation and product availability. This parameter ensures that products are displayed in stores according to specific minimum requirements in terms of units and size curve distribution.
Visual rules take into account two main factors:
- Minimum Units: The minimum number of units required for a product to be displayed.
- Size Curve Weight: The proportion of each size that must be represented in-store, based on historical sales data for each family, store, and size-set.
(In case you don’t remember how these weights are calculated in Nextail, jump to the “Size Curves” article before configuring your visual rules).
Why does this parameter combine both factors (min units & min weight)?
Let’s imagine a case of a low rotation product without much demand.
If the user was only setting a minimum of 5 units, the system could send, for example, 5 XLs only to fulfill these visual rules (we still haven’t met any store manager who would be happy about that!)
As a consequence, by adding the second requirement, you ensure that when sending those 5 units, they make sense from a customer point of view - as several sizes would be represented in the shop floor.
For example, let’s imagine that:
- This is the size curve of a trouser in a given store:
- These are the visual rules configured for the Family Trousers:
→ Min units displayed: 5
→ Min weight displayed: 45%
With both rules configured, instead of replenishing 5 units of size XL (that would represent no more than 6% of the curve!), the system would be incentivised to send any of the following combination of sizes:
- Size XS, S, L (48%)
- Size XS, M (45%)
- Size M, S (50%)
- Size XXS, XS, L, XL, XXL (50%)
- …
When is it useful to configure Visual Rules?
Before configuring visual rules in Nextail, it is important to ask yourself:
- “Does my business actually have this concept of minimum representation on the shop floor?”
- “If yes, do the store managers actually remove the items from the shop floor when running below that minimum?”
If the answer is no, our initial advice would be not to set them up - as they can work as a restriction for the algorithm where x conditions need to be fulfilled in order for the replenishment to be triggered (the system understands not meeting the visual rules means removing the product from the shop floor → which therefore translates into the demand forecast being zero).
Besides, by not configuring visual rules, you allow the algorithm decisions to be purely demand-driven (which means a more optimal distribution of your stock throughout the season).
If you are interested in setting visual rules, continue reading the next section, where we will explain some important considerations to bear in mind when choosing your rules.
Critical Considerations When Setting Visual Rules
Risk of Under-Replenishment:
One of the most important aspects to understand when using this parameter is that, if visual rules cannot be met, the system assumes the product won’t be displayed in-store, and therefore its demand will be set to zero 
This can lead to situations where no stock is sent even if there’s potential demand simply because the visual rules were too restrictive.
For example, if you set a high minimum number of units or a very high percentage of the size curve, and the warehouse stock is too low to even make it possible to meet these requirements, the system may decide not to replenish the store at all (any size). As a result, you might miss out on sales opportunities for that product.
Risk of Over-Replenishment:
Conversely, visual rules can also lead to overstocking in certain situations.
If, to meet the visual rule, the system proposes sending additional units of sizes with very low demand (for instance size XL with little historical sales), you may end up with stock that is unlikely to get sold… simply to comply with the visual rules configured.
Based on the explanations above, let’s see how Visual Rules can influence the replenishment decisions of the system with a numerical example.
How can visual rules be configured?
This parameter is configured through a Data Upload - having previously filled up the following template:
|
StoreCategoryName |
ProductCategoryName |
MinSizesPercentage |
MinUnitsPerProduct |
UnitsOverSizeNumber |
|
Write here… |
Write here… |
Write here… |
Write here… |
Write here… |
- ProductCategoryName: Copy-paste from the platform the name of the Store Category for which you want this visual rule to apply (Open Stores, Channel, Country, Area, Store Type, Store Size, Distribution Type…)
- StoreCategoryName: Copy-paste from the platform the name of the Store Category for which you want this visual rule to apply (Section, Family, Subfamily, Range group, DPT…)
- MinSizesPercentage: Minimum size weight that needs to be represented in-store for the product to be available (the higher this percentage, the more restrictive the visual rules will be).
- MinUnitsPerProduct: Minimum number of units that need to be in-store for the product to be available (the higher this number, the more restrictive the visual rules will be).
- UnitsOverSizeNumber: If instead of having a fixed value you would rather configure the minimum units dependent on the length of the size set of each product, you can use this field instead of the previous one. For example, let’s imagine we set the value “-3” in this field:
- For a product with 10 sizes, it will set a minimum of 7 units (10 - 3)
- For a product with 5 sizes, it will set a minimum of 2 units (5 - 3)
- When both are configured, the highest value will prevail. As a consequence, by setting a symbolic value as “-100” in this field, you ensure that the value configured on the field “MinUnitsPerProduct” always gets applied over this one.
- UnitsOverSizeNumber: If instead of having a fixed value you would rather configure the minimum units dependent on the length of the size set of each product, you can use this field instead of the previous one. For example, let’s imagine we set the value “-3” in this field:
There are endless options to configure your Visual Rules, always depending on which business cases you are trying to cover with them.
We could have a universal rule (that applies to all products in all stores) or different rules applying to different categories of products and stores. For example;
- In my business only Denim has a hard rule that states that unless 10 units of several sizes are displayed, the product will be taken to the stockroom:
|
StoreCategoryName |
ProductCategoryName |
MinSizesPercentage |
MinUnitsPerProduct |
UnitsOverSizeNumber |
|
Retail Stores |
Denim |
30% |
10 |
-100 |
- In my business only Flagships have this hard rule where unless 5 units across several core sizes are displayed, the item will be taken to the stockroom:
|
StoreCategoryName |
ProductCategoryName |
MinSizesPercentage |
MinUnitsPerProduct |
UnitsOverSizeNumber |
|
Flagship |
All Families |
50% |
5 |
-100 |
- In my business it is important to maintain a minimum of 4 units across different sizes in all families and types of stores:
|
StoreCategoryName |
ProductCategoryName |
MinSizesPercentage |
MinUnitsPerProduct |
UnitsOverSizeNumber |
|
All Stores |
All Families |
25% |
4 |
-100 |
- In my business, only Full Price stores take stock to the stockroom when none of the core sizes are available, while outlets display everything they have regardless of the size:
|
StoreCategoryName |
ProductCategoryName |
MinSizesPercentage |
MinUnitsPerProduct |
UnitsOverSizeNumber |
|
Full Price Stores |
All Families |
40% |
- |
-100 |
Best Practice: It's advisable to use automatic categories when setting visual rules. This ensures that any changes in your network, such as the introduction of new stores or products, are automatically included without requiring manual updates to your rules.
Once these are configured, they operate automatically. In other words, this is a one-time setup at category level - as you saw on the examples above (e.g., by product family or store group) -, and applies across all products and stores within the categories used.
Once your template is ready, go to “Daily Data → Data Upload → Visual Rules” and upload it:
How can the user review which visual rules are configured at the moment?
There are two ways of reviewing current configuration:
- When you are interested in seeing / exporting all the visual rules created in Nextail, you can go to “Master Data → Visual Rules” and review or download the content:
- If, on the other hand, you are interested in validating which visual rules have been used for a particular product-store combination in a given scenario, you can do so by accessing the replenishment screens:
What happens when a group of products / stores have been included in several visual rules?
The rule that prevails is the one with the lowest number of store-product combinations, simulating a hierarchical approach - although not strictly. Therefore, it would normally be the one configured at the most granular level.
Conclusion
Visual rules are a powerful tool to ensure that your products are displayed correctly in stores, maintaining both brand representation and product availability. However, they must be managed carefully. Set too restrictive rules, and you risk missing out on sales. Set rules without considering demand, and you might end up with excess stock. The key is to strike a balance, using visual rules to support your merchandising strategy while remaining flexible to real-time sales performance and stock availability.
